CEO at Symbiotic | Opportunity Scout at Gruppo Potente, in pursuit of opportunities without regard to resources currently controlled #WhatIsNext #AfricaRising

Move fast and break things. Avoid making strategy mis-steps

Fortune favors the brave, and we need to see more corporate leaders take calculated risks and leave the let’s wait and see members club. It is unfortunate that in many sectors, a form of corporate rigor mortis sets in resulting in slow adoption of new trends or the creation of new models and ways of business with a most annoying mirroring of services once traction is achieved or promise becomes evident. Three sectors that serve as good case studies are highlighted below.

Financial services
The poster child of success that is Mpesa continues to dominate, with Safaricom dead set on ensuring that their biggest threat represented by Equity Bank via their subsidiary brand Equitel are bogged in legislation in their pursuit of the use of thin SIM technology. For the banks, despite the initial pushback on mobile money, they have all now been assimilated as partners in mobile money’s growing ecosystem. It is unfortunate however that they continue racing with blinders on, deploying independent mobile banking platforms targeting the mass market consumer, while the battle has since shifted to the providers of products and services, a B2B agenda.

Mass transit
We all seem to have caught a whiff of the annual 250 billion shilling opportunity flowing in the pubic mass transit sector. Early movers had a difficult time moving from novelty to necessity, but now everyone has gone on a foray; replicating consumer experiences across board. There is no clear leader yet, but it could be argued that there are other segments of this value chain that present lower risk on the capital and competition front while still delivering a healthy revenue payload.

Fast moving consumer goodsFor decades, FMCG outfits have fed the bottom-line of the media fraternity who record revenues in the billions annually. The curious discovery is that for many, the consumer is still represented by an SKU – stock keeping unit. Beyond brand recognition, where every brand and marketing manager seeks the holy grail that is to be a household name, the folly of this aged way of work is that these firms have entrusted access to their customers to third parties.

These missteps can be easily corrected by smart strategic decisions that will see the use technology to provide much needed competitive advantage and service differentiation, especially using mobile value added services. Review your current ways of work and think through how you respond to opportunities, whether birthed in-house or in reaction to market movement.

An Africa based entrepreneur in the pursuit of opportunities without regard to resources currently controlled striving to build services that have real-world value for my beloved continent and beyond while having fun along the way.